Novak Djokovic is two wins away from capturing titles at all four of his fall tournaments. Standing in his way of the London final on Sunday is Stanislas Wawrinka.
It seems appropriate that Stanislas Wawrinka’s season is all coming down to this.
Wawrinka is wrapping up the best year of his career, but it could have been that much better if not for Novak Djokovic. They faced each other in two Grand Slam thrillers, with Djokovic prevailing both times; 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, 6-7(5), 12-10 at the Australian Open and 2-6, 7-6(4), 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the U.S. Open semifinals.
Heading into semifinal Sunday at the World Tour Finals, Djokovic is dominating the overall head-to-head series at the ATP level 14-2–including 9-1 on hard courts. Their third 2013 came last month at the Shanghai Masters, where the Serb scored a much more comfortable 6-1, 6-4 victory. Wawrinka took two of their first three meetings, both in 2006, only to lose 13 in a row.
Comfortable is exactly what Wawrinka’s passage into the London semifinals was not. The eighth-ranked Swiss beat Tomas Berdych in three sets then lost to Rafael Nadal in two tiebreakers before needing a win on Friday over David Ferrer. Wawrinka got the job done after recovering from a set deficit, but he still had to sweat out the remaining hours of the day. Nadal had to beat Berdych in order for Wawrinka to advance and the Spaniard did, holding off the Czech in three tight sets.
Djokovic was in relative cruise-control on his way through robin-robin competition, improving his unblemished post-U.S. Open record to 20-0. The Beijing, Shanghai, and Paris champion took care of Roger Federer, Juan Martin Del Potro, and Richard Gasquet–although he required three sets in all three matches.
Wawrinka served at 55 percent against Berdych, 47 percent against Nadal, and 57 percent against Ferrer. Unless those numbers improve significantly against perhaps the best returner in the game, he is going to be in for a long day at the office. The underdog must dictate play with first-strike tennis using his serve and one-handed backhand, because his defense is nowhere near the caliber of Djokovic’s. Unfortunately for Wawrinka, he may be on the defensive more often than not on a relatively slow indoor hard court.
Pick: Djokovic in 2
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1 winner from Novak so far, and he is serving for the 1st set…………..and people complain about Rafa making his opponents leak errors
Stan is playing with very less margins
Stan just gifted this set with 18 UE and just 48% serves
Yeah, without a big serve, Stan’s game does measure up unfortunately……………….he needs to up his 1st serve stat……
^^does not measure….
Stan’s toast……..
I hate it when Djokovic is in this mood. Smug, cocky and obnoxiously triumphant.
I have a horrible feeling Stan has run out of steam and hasn’t enough left to fight back or even make it competitive.
^^well, you don’t wanna watch tomorrow then, because he will be at his triumphalist best if he beats Rafa……….
He’s an idiot.
I atleast want 3 to soften Nole up..looks like wont happen
Stan has given up already………..
Match point…….
#DoubleBreak
Stan copied Fed’s shanking, Fed copied Stan’s lousy FH………
I dont know if Fed made Rafa for what he is today or not, but one thing I can definitely say is that Rafa made the present Nole.
Nole after suffering all those pestering over the years transformed into an improvised version of Rafa. If Rafa was a brick wall from the back of the court, he became a stone wall. Rafa had the mental strength of a tungsten, Nole developed something out of this world.
Just got to appreciate this guy for all he has put in.
Well, I hope that Novak is overconfident re Nadal tomorrow. My head says he won’t be…
My lord. What a pass!! Novak is now truly the Rafa of hard courts !
He looks annoyingly good out there, no? Tomorrow is going to be a cocker!
Did you mean a corker. Or he will be cockier?
^^The match will be a corker, Djoko will be cockier……
Actually I agree with you abhirf. It doesn’t make me like him though.
I have liked him from the moment he appeared on the scene. Just liked his on court antics like a joker on the court. To me was an entertaining guy, who can play some great tennis too. Even though he showed a lot of promise initially, never really thought he would escalate to such heights!
What a damp squib….
Stan came out this evening not really believing he could win.
Djokovic was in awesome form.
Yeah, really a damp squib!
Up, up and away Rafa! I believe Rafa will win this, he really does want it: and you know whatever Rafa wants, Rafa gets!!! Vamos!!!
Well, the script is playing out. It will be Rafa and Novak tomorrow. If both remain healthy, this will be an oft repeated scenario for the next several years. They already have played the most H2H matches in the open era. They may end up playing 50 times against one another by the end of their careers. It’ll be a “record” that will probably never be broken.
Djoker was annoyingly good in this match and Stan just didn’t have the belief. The ESPN commies said that Djoker used strong defensive play to frustrate Stan into committing errors. But they said that Djoker will play more offensive tennis tomorrow against Rafa.
Ya think? LOL!
Rafa is going to have to come out playing his best if he wants to win this title. Djoker is feeling good now that he has his own winning streak going. He will want to take away the one thing that Rafa wants, if he can’t have the year end #1.